Top Job Available? Mark Carney’s Name Could Come Up

Bank of Canada Governor and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board Mark Carney speaks during the Canadian Council of Chief Executives conference in Ottawa earlier this week.

Mark Carney’s name seems to come up pretty often whenever a high-profile job becomes available anywhere in the world.

Last year, the Bank of Canada governor was touted as a dark horse candidate to take over as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn stepped down as a result of being implicated in a sex scandal. France’s Christine Lagarde eventually got the job.

Earlier this year, British newspaper reports said Mr. Carney had been informally approached about succeeding Mervyn King as head of the Bank of England. Mr. Carney said the report was “not accurate” and that he was focused on the two big jobs he does hold: head of Canada’s central bank and chairman of the Financial Stability Board.

Thursday, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. report suggested unidentified senior members of Canada’s Liberal Party are working behind the scenes to persuade Mr. Carney to ditch his central banking job and jump into the political arena. The Liberal Party members reportedly want Mr. Carney to campaign to become leader of the federal party, which is now the third party in Canada’s Parliament after suffering its worst defeat yet in the 2011 election. The draft Carney story emerged after reports said Justin Trudeau, the son of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, will officially announce next week his intention to seek the Liberal Party leadership.

There’s even a Facebook page dedicated to getting Mr. Carney to seek political office on behalf of the Liberals. Earlier Thursday the page had almost 650 “likes.”

When asked about the veracity of the CBC report, a Bank of Canada spokesman referred reporters to a transcript of an interview Mr. Carney granted to Canada’s Global Television Network last April. In that interview, in which he was asked about a future in politics, Mr. Carney said he was “not” contemplating a move into politics and wanted to “close” off any such talk.

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